


Breathe Again

by Snake (Fatality145)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-28
Updated: 2012-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-13 02:43:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fatality145/pseuds/Snake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard remembers just how good it is to take a fresh breath of air. ~ Leviathan DLC Spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe Again

**Author's Note:**

> okAY WOW. i woke up at 3am after four hours sleep. downloaded leviathan. played it through and now it's 9am i should maybe go to sleep yeah im gonna.

There was something so much better about breathing fresh air after the recycled stuff, no matter how salty or thin it was in the atmosphere – it always ran down the throat better, expanded the lungs more fully, left you more lightheaded. That was in a good way, though, despite how it made his legs turn boneless, the quick rush of depressurization leaving his head spinning, blood dripping down between his lips from his nose.

 

He heard his name in the distance, warped, but he could pick out the concern even over the guttural growls of the Brutes and Husks, the hard ground meeting with his armoured knees, pupils pin-pricked and pained. There was only so much light down that deep.

 

Behind him, the Atlas fell back into the water, and he groaned thickly, pulling himself forward as to not end up with it, the force of the dark waves pushing and pulling at the floating construct. He didn’t even realize he’d been holding his breath until arms closed around him, taking that first inhale, remembering what it was like to just _breathe_.

 

                That had happened to him a total of four times, he could guess, maybe with a few smaller instances in between.

 

                The first time was when he had managed to get out of Sovereign’s debris within the destroyed Citadel, dumb grin on his lips, elated feeling through his limbs. When he awoke from the Lazerus project, that was the second time, that nice sensation gone and replaced with an ache and a stiffness, but he had been alive, so that was something, at least.

 

                The third time was probably his favourite.

 

                _‘It feels right, doesn’t it?’_

_‘It does… It does feel right,’_

                Back pressed against the floor of the Kodiak, Shepard took another breath, squeezing his eyes shut, shaking his swimming head slightly between the hands that held his cheeks. He winced, cracking a lid open, the scant blood painting his bore teeth with a red tinge. More talking, asking if he was alright. He muttered something in response, clearing his throat and trying to right himself, blinking repeatedly, clearing his blurry sight.

 

                His lightly furrowed brow was mirrored by another’s above him, a pursed mouth, light scars beneath short facial hair. Shepard had half the mind to tell the Major that, look, his concern wasn’t needed, that he’d come out in one piece, but it took him a bit longer than he’d liked to get his voice back proper. That was the thing with metaphysical meetings, even if Shepard barely understood a lick of what was said, it had effectively knocked him out. It was _some_ power the Leviathan had.

 

                Shepard licked his otherwise dried lips, tasting the blood on his tongue, his nose scrunching up a little.

 

                “…Here, I got you,” Kaidan started, wiping  the pad of his thumb gently beneath the guy’s nose and lips, sweeping away the cruor as best he could with a still-gauntleted hand.

 

                Pushing himself up on a shaky palm, the vertigo of the moving shuttle doing nothing to ease the headache, Shepard took one of the other’s hands in his own, squeezing it before pulling it away.

 

                “Never do that again,” His voice was short, quiet, but it held so many damn implications that Shepard had to duck his head, feeling that slight amount of guilt, like he’d just been scorned by Anderson way back in the day.

 

                He supposed a little grilling was called for. Hell, he’d just been down into the maws of a watery death with an unknown hostile in a mech none of them were really sure sufficed for the job. Though, the small headache was worth the unfathomable ally, and definitely worth the warm kiss pressed to his icy lips.

 

\--

 

How to go about loving a man like Shepard. Kaidan could only shake his head with a soft chuckle as he stood in the starboard observatory, arms crossed, fresh, minor flesh wounds stitched up and slick with medigel quickly sewing the fibres of his skin back together. For once, he hadn’t been the one to suffer the headache or the nosebleed. He didn’t know the severity of Shepard’s own, but at least he could relate, in some aspect.

 

                That was more than he could say for a lot of other facets of the guy. Shepard must have had a deathwish, or something, definitely, with an ingrained saviour complex to boot. He was _insane_. But he wouldn’t change it, not in a million eons. Maybe he would tone down the frequency, though, give the both of them a little downtime.

 

                Kaidan didn’t know if they would be the same as they were with each other if they hadn’t been through everything that they had. Camaraderie in shared pain, strength in the healed scar tissue between them. Shepard was so much more than his accomplishments, or even his failures, as the man would think, sometimes, but they made up who he was, too. Shepard was just… Shepard. John. An ordinarily extraordinary person doing extraordinarily ordinary things, at least, that’s what it seemed like sometimes to people who have been around him since the beginning. Shepard just had a knack for the impossible.

 

                “…That’s what I love about you.”

 

                That same dumb grin crossed Shepard’s lips, the same that he’d seen when he survived the Citadel siege, and the same he’d seen at the Citadel date. Like a weird sort of relief, like getting out alive, like taking a fresh breath.

 

                A few, calloused fingers curled beneath Kaidan’s belt, tugging him forward, and, he found, those lips had lost their frostbitten edge. 


End file.
